A report from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) presents some startling new statistics about the prevalence of various mental disorders among American youth. Overall, researchers from the CDC found that anywhere from 13 to 20 percent of children living in the US experience some type of mental disorder in a year.
This new report includes data from a number of surveys and health surveillance systems that ran for some period between 2001 and 2011. Thus this analysis includes data from sources that did not all use the same procedures for gathering information a weakness of the current study. For example, some relied on self-reports, while others asked for diagnoses by physicians. Further, since some individuals may have had more than one condition, the results could have been artificially inflated.
However, the results are still disturbing. The most common parent- reported condition was attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, affecting 6.8 percent of 3-17 year old children, followed by 3.5 percent for behavioral or conduct problems, 3.0 percent for depression, and 2.1 percent for autism spectrum disorders. Perhaps the most distressing statistic was that suicide was the second most common cause of death among those aged 12 17 years only accidents were more likely to be fatal in this age group.
In the future, the authors suggest Standard surveillance case definitions are needed to reliably categorize and count mental disorders among surveillance systems.
ACSH s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan comments These data point to a disturbing situation among American youth. We need reliable data to allow health professionals to target appropriate treatments for all these disorders.
